How to be Notified When a Device Connects to Your Network

byRoss McKilloponMay 27, 2017

This quick tip will show you how to be notified each time a device connects to your home network.

If you already have Wireless Network Watcher installed, this will be super easy. If you don’t, we have a guide that covers the entire thing, from start to finish. Once you’ve got it installed and configured, head back here.

The first step is to make Wireless Network Watcher start-up at boot. If you need help with that, we’ve got a guide for Windows 10 users to set any program to start when Windows boots (which happens to use this very program as an example).

Now to make a couple of changes to the WNW settings. Open WNW and select Options from the top menu. From the pop-up menu that appears, place a check next to the item named Put Icon On Tray. This will make sure when WNW starts up, it does so minimized and out of your way, but still accessible via the System Tray. The second item to select is optional, but useful/helpful – Beep On New Device. If you don’t like the default beep sound, you can change it to any audio file (and we’ll show you where). Finally, select Advanced

If you want to change that default beep sound, place a check in the box labeled Use the following audio file for new device notification: and then click the … button at the end of that line. From there you’ll navigate to the audio/sound file that you want to play when a new device connects to your network. The last setting to take a look at is Activate the beep/tray alert/command-execution only if the device is detected for the first time – you don’t need to enable it right now, but remember where it is. Some devices can (and will) connect and disconnect to your network really frequently. If those notifications become too frequent, this last setting is the one you’ll want to enable. If you make this change, only new and previously undetected device connections to your network will trigger notifications.